


Of a rose

by rillaelilz



Category: Poldark - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-15
Updated: 2015-05-15
Packaged: 2018-03-30 17:43:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3945829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rillaelilz/pseuds/rillaelilz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the wedding celebration, Ross approaches the bride.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of a rose

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this about two months ago, more out of insomnia than anything else. I was reading the first book at the time, and for some reason this image stuck with me.

She blushes, delicate cherry blossoms on her peach-soft skin, and yet it feels like an obscenity in the face of her wedding dress.  
  


It’s like a devil taunting him in the shade of Elizabeth’s shy smile, because,  _by God_  - she’s not allowed to blush for him,  _she is not allowed_  to show him a glimpse of her dearest thoughts, like a secret splashed in pink over her cheeks for the entire world to see and Ross alone to reap and decode.

She has no right to offer him such an intimate delight - one that should serve her husband’s pleasure only, and nobody else’s.  
  


_But dear God, she blushes_  and he can  _feel_  it underneath his fingertips, hot and sweet and teasing his skin with sparks and unbidden hopes, and it’s unfair,  _unfair_  how the scent from her parents’ garden is flickering back in his nostrils, unfair how he can taste the faint hint of gingerbread on her lips, the shudder at the memory of their breaths mingling.

  
She blushes, she does, and it enrages him - a fiery anger setting deep in his bones, and  _Oh, he should_  - he  _could_  drape her veil about her head again, see if that wicked flush still shows through the pure white lace, grasp her frail shoulders and drag her to her husband and have Francis see too -  _showing him, telling him_  - Look, cousin,  _look_ how your wife’s skin burns for me, look how her blood quickens _for me, for me Francis–_  
  
  
But Elizabeth blushes, her cheeks betraying what her voice endeavors to conceal, and Ross clenches his fists by his sides - keeps the memory of her tender flesh, arms and hands and lips and jaw, hidden deep into the creases and scars of his palms; a hundred dreams of her rucked up skirts painting the grass in bright blues and mild tans, all locked away in the man’s slippery hold, to cherish and despise in his lonely hours.

Oh, Ross will let it all destroy him, painfully and thoroughly, but  _later_. When he’s back in Nampara’s damp desolation, when he can let himself give in to the darkness creeping in every dusty corner.  
  
Now, he reins his rage in, lets it subside.

For if  _she_  blushes and  _he_  still feels his heart wrench under her fair gaze, then this gorge of Hell they’re sharing, and it’s cruel enough as it is.


End file.
